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The Hollywood rescue thriller Argo scored its expected Best Picture win Sunday night at the 85thAcademy Awards, but Life of Pi was really living the good life.

Ang Lee’s surreal sea adventure took four Oscars, the most by any film, including a surprise Best Director victory over Lincoln’s Steven Spielberg.

Argo took just three trophies — it also won for editing and screenwriting — in one of the smallest-ever hauls for a major Oscar victor.

Actor/director Ben Affleck became frequently tongue-tied as he thanked everyone involved in the making of the drama, inspired by Canada’s 1980 rescue of six American diplomats from a volatile Iran.

“It doesn’t matter how you get knocked down in life, because that’s going to happen. All that matters is that you get back up again,” Affleck said, alluding to the Argocontroversy that surrounded Argo, which included him being overlooked for Best Director consideration.

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It was a nail-biting and truly Hollywood ending to a topsy-turvy awards season —including a rare Oscar tie, for Best Sound Editing.

Lee bowed deeply and happily to the Dolby Theatre audience as he accepted his Best Director award, his second Oscar in the category. He’d previously won for Brokeback Mountain in 2005, another year when his film didn’t go on to Best Picture glory.

“Thank you movie gods!” said the Taiwanese director, 58, as he gave thanks to his crew and his wife of 30 years. Life of Pi was partially filmed in Canada, and is based on the Man Booker Prize-winning novel by Canadian author Yann Martel.

Jennifer Lawrence, 22, won for Best Actress for the romantic comedy Silver Linings Playbook, rushing the stage with such enthusiasm, she tripped on the stairs.

“I feel bad that I fell and that’s really embarrassing, but that’s okay!” she said.

Daniel Day-Lewis, 55, became the first man to win Best Actor for a third time, living up to expectations by taking Lincoln’s title role to golden glory.

“I really don’t know how any of this happened. I do know that I’ve received more than my fair share of fortune in my life,” the London-born Irish actor modestly said.

He joked that he’d really committed to play Margaret Thatcher, the role that won Meryl Streep Best Actress last year, “and Meryl was actually Steven’s first choice for Lincoln.”

There were more surprises than sure things, and they started early in the evening, as Christoph Waltz took Best Supporting Actor despite strong odds against him.

Waltz previously won in this category just three years ago in another Tarantino film, Inglourious Basterds, which first brought him to the attention of a global audience. Many pundits thought it unlikely the Academy would choose him again so soon, but they were wrong.

“We participated in a hero’s journey, the hero here being Quentin,” a shocked and delighted Waltz said, employing his character Dr. King Schultz’s verbose manner of speaking.

As Tarantino looked on beaming, Waltz, 56, continued his tribute to the Django writer/director, who took much heat for his film’s violence and raw language: “You scaled the mountain because you’re not afraid of it. You slay the dragon, because you’re not afraid of it, and you cross through fire because it’s worth it.”

Tarantino had more reason smile later on, as he grasped the gold for writing the Best Original Screenplay for Django Unchained, defeating such touted contenders as Amour and Zero Dark Thirty.

“If people know about my movie 30 or 50 years from now, it’s going to be because of the characters I created,” boasted Tarantino, who first won an Oscar in 1994 for Pulp Fiction.

In contrast, Anne Hathaway’s win for Best Supporting Actress, her first Oscar, was entirely expected. She’d already taken most industry and guild awards in the long run-up to the Academy Awards. But she managed to look surprised all the same.

“It came true!” said Hathaway, 30, as she tearfully clutched her golden statue for her portrayal of tragic abandoned mother Fantine in Les Misérables, which also took Best Makeup/Hairstyling and Best Sound Mixing to become the night’s early awards leader.

Hathaway added a bit of social commentary after thanking her Hollywood backers and also her husband.

“Here’s hoping that someday in the not-too-distant future, the misfortunes of Fantine will only be found in stories, and never more in real life.”

Meanwhile, Argo had to just keep waiting. Ben Affleck’s rescue thriller, heavily tipped to win Best Picture by night’s end over Spielberg’s presidential drama Lincoln, didn’t land its first prize until 10:35 p.m., when William Goldberg was honoured for Best Film Editing.

The win, Goldberg’s first Oscar, had its own element of surprise. Besides competing against Lincoln and other strong challengers, Goldberg was essentially fighting against himself: he was also nominated (with Dylan Tichenor) for editing the 9/11 payback docudrama Zero Dark Thirty.

Argo later won for Best Adapted Screenplay for Chris Terrio, an upset over Lincoln’s Tony Kushner, who had been expected to win until only recently.

Lincoln was also kept on the bench for much of the evening. Spielberg’s film led the Oscar field with 12 nominations, but it didn’t make its first conversion to gold entirely nearly 11 p.m., when it emancipated Best Production Design. (Daniel Day-Lewis’ expected win for Best Actor, his historic third success in the category, was still to come.)

Christoph Waltz’s early surprise victory was nothing compared to shock later on of an extremely rare Oscars tie, and in a category most people usually overlook: Best Sound Editing. It was split between two thrillers: Zero Dark Thirty and 007 actioner Skyfall.

Another mild eyebrow-raiser early in the evening was the win by Brave for Best Animated Feature. It’s unusual that a Pixar film should be the underdog at the Oscars, but many thought Wreck-It Ralph would take the prize.

But there was also another non-shocker in Amour taking Best Foreign-Language Film for its late-life romance story, defeating Canada’s Rebelle, directed by Montreal’s Kim Nguyen.

Amour’s win followed months of acclaim that began with a Palme d’Or win at the Cannes Film Festival last May, and German writer/director Michael Haneke accepted his trophy with a smile and a few modest words of thanks, with special warmth for his wife of 30 years.

The Best Live Action Short category had one of Canada’s best shots for Oscar glory, with three of the five nominated films — Henry, Asad and Buzkashi Boys — containing some measure of Cancon. But the gold went to Curfew, a New York comedy about a suicidal man and a precocious kid.

There were few signs of any major sweeps in the night’s early going, although Tom Hooper’s Les Misérables was doing well with three wins. So was Life of Pi, which was making waves in the technical categories, with three early wins for Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects and Best Original Score, before completing its haul with Best Director.

Best Original Score was also a Canadian victory, for Toronto-bred composer Mychael Danna, a first-time Oscar winner.

But the show was decidedly a hit-and-miss affair, with some musical numbers working, others not. On the plus side was a golden-sheathed Shirley Bassey, 76, displaying her still-strong pipes on the title tune from Goldfinger (1964), the best part of a brief and otherwise underwhelming 50th anniversary tribute to the James Bond movie franchise.

And speaking of hit and miss, MacFarlane’s humour was mainly in the latter category, which his performance of a bawdy tune called “We Saw Your Boobs.”

The first-time Oscar host, creator of the potty-mouth summer hit Ted and TV’s show Family Guy series, made a tasteless joke about the Lincoln assassination, to the groans of audience members.

He followed that by introducing Ben Affleck to the stage with a joke about Gigli, a notorious bomb the actor/director had starred in. An unamused Affleck sarcastically told MacFarlane that he’d thought the show was going okay so far, but “maybe you can turn it around.”

The joking appearance of Star Trek’s Captain Kirk, played by Canada’s William Shatner, was meant as ironic commentary on the inevitable bad reviews Oscar show hosts receive.

But it seemed all too appropriate as Shatner told MacFarlane “the show’s a disaster” and “your jokes are tasteless and inappropriate and everybody ends up hating you.”

MacFarlane wasn’t kidding when he said early on that the night was “designed to put your patience to the test.”

Fortunately, the show also retained a measure of class in a performance by Barbra Streisand, who sang “The Way We Were” during the In Memoriam section.

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